Henry and Gus

This little painting was done on commission for one of my dog walker friends. On weekend mornings as many as 12 dogs (and their owners) go romping through the woods in Bel Air. Only one thing more fun than watching one dog run is watching two. 12x12in  oil on birch panel

Sleeping Kate

18x26in pastel

A pastel that I have recently brought to completion. My goal was to paint the figure with the same layers of color linework and crosshatched color as I paint my rocks and most importantly I wanted to achieve a likeness. That's the technical side. I also wanted to paint a portrait of my wife who is always moving about when she finally found peace at the end of a stressful day curled up in the living room chair. I started from a sketch and some photo references(she never woke) and finished it up in the studio.   I haven't painted alot of figures let alone portraits over the years. I lost interest after hundreds of drawings in college. But lately the figure has been creeping back into my landscape painting and after seeing the MPS show  I thought it was time to tackle it again. I recently finished a unit on the figure with my students. They did not want to draw from the model, mostly because of a fear of failure. The figure and portraits can be very intimidating. This began a discussion on risk. I often tell them that without risk there can be no art and finding and facing that moment of risk is a constant struggle for artists.      I was recently reading a great book called "How to be a Graphic Artist and not Lose Your Soul" by Adrian Shaughnessy and he came up with an equation that defines creativity in the best way. RISK+DISCOMFORT+SWEAT(+-INSPIRATION)= CREATIVITY

He says that there can be no creativity without risk and he goes on to say that "We have to flirt with failure if we are to produce anything with genius in it."

Now, I'm not saying  this is any work of genius but it is an excursion out of my comfort zone into new territory.

Dawn Light, Live Oak

When the sun hit this Live Oak tree in Oldfields SC. it cast a rosy, orangish glow that gradually faded to gold then disappeared. I started it on site last summer but didnt quite get the shadow colors the way I wanted. Tweaked it in the studio last weekend and as a color sketch I'm satisfied now with the result. 9x9in oil  

Dawn on the Severn

Here is a view of the Severn River looking over to the Peninsula, a view I have painted many times but never drawn in pastel. I started this about a year ago but never completed because I couldn't resolve the foreground. I got inspired by the many pastels at the MPS show and decided to tackle the sails. It was an interesting dawn. The day was hot and overcast. The light was a pinkish white. The "white" sails were salmon pinks and deep chocolate browns. The photo of the drawing is a bit on the pale side. It's a little warmer in good light. I treated the sails like my rock drawings, just building up layers of lines and colored textures. I tried something new in using water on a brush and painted the darks in using the pastel then drawing over the underpainting. This view is my "Chapel Pond" down here. a very peaceful, unique piece of land that never ceases to give me pleasure in watching how light plays over the surface of the land like the human body. 18x24 in pastel on sanded paper.   

SHADES OF PASTEL- National juried show

Maryland Pastel Society’s “Shades of Pastel” National Juried Exhibition, October 24-November 20, 2011, at Workhouse Art Center, Lorton, Virginia. Juror: Liz Haywood-Sullivan.

One of my pastels was picked to be in this years exhibit ("Vista", a self portrait of me on Noomark Mt) If you ever thought pastel was a a medium subservient to oil paint then this show will change your mind. The color nearly jumped off the walls. There was such  variety in style, technique, and subject from pieces that echoed Post- impressionist paintings of the 19th and 20th cen to bold modernist color abstractions. Truely inspiring. These are  paintings of pure pigment that glow.  My first juried exhibition where I had to ship my work and it made me quite nervous but everything turned out ok. The gallery is beautiful as well. The Workhouse Art Center is a spacious renovated historic site like Alexandria's Torpedo Factory where many artists work . I hope folks get to see it.

Storm Along Pocock Rd

Another one painted between rain showers last week on the Leake farm.  Of course when I finished up so did the storm and there was incredible light. No matter. Being in the moment was incredible and pushing paint around trying to capture those scudding clouds was feeling alive.  .

Bud Leake's Barn

Painting in the pouring rain, it was still great fun. One of the little oil sketches I painted out on the Leake property. Looking at his work gives one great permission to just jump in and paint. One good thing about painting in overcast  or rainy conditions is you don't have to worry about changing light conditions.And when it begins to rain you don't have time to think. You just get it down.  Another reason to compare oneself to a flyfisherman. They're out there in the rain as well. I think I got a small one but a keeper, none the less.  10x10in oil